Iconoclasm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Iconoclast" redirects here. For other uses, see Iconoclast (disambiguation).
"Triumph of Orthodoxy" over iconoclasm under the Byzantine Empress Theodora and her son Michael III. Late 14th – early 15th century icon.
and other images or monuments for religious or political motives. In
time, the word, usually in the adjectival form, has also come to refer
to aggressive statements or actions against any well-established status quo.
It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes. The
term does not generally encompass the specific destruction of images of
a ruler after his death or overthrow (damnatio memoriae). The destruction of religious icons by a group with another religion or culture is not considered iconoclasm.
People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts,
a term that has come to be applied figuratively to any individual who
challenges "cherished beliefs or venerated institutions on the grounds
that they are erroneous or pernicious".[1] Conversely, one who reveres or venerates religious images is called (by iconoclasts) an iconolater; in a Byzantine context, such a person is called an iconodule or iconophile.
Iconoclasm may be carried out by people of a different religion, but
is often the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same
religion. In Christianity, iconoclasm has generally been motivated by
people who adopt a literal interpretation of the Ten Commandments, which forbid the making and worshipping of "graven images or any likeness of anything".[2] The Church Fathers identified Jews and Judaism with heresy.
They saw deviations from Orthodox Christianity and opposition to the
veneration of images as heresies that were essentially "Jewish in
spirit".[3]
The degree of iconoclasm among Christian branches greatly varies.
Islam, in general, tends to be more iconoclastic than Christianity, with
Sunni Islam being more iconoclastic than Shia Islam.
Contents
Religious iconoclasm
Byzantine era
Main article: Byzantine Iconoclasm
In the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, government-led iconoclasm began with Byzantine Emperor Leo III, following what seems to have been a long period of rising opposition to the use or misuse of images.
The religious conflict created political and economic divisions in
Byzantine society. It was generally supported by the Eastern, poorer,
non-Greek peoples of the Empire[5]
who had to deal frequently with raids from the new Muslim Empire. On
the other hand, the wealthier Greeks of Constantinople, and also the
peoples of the Balkan and Italian provinces, strongly opposed
iconoclasm.[6]
Within the Byzantine Empire the government had probably been adopting
Christian images more frequently. One notable change came in 695, when Justinian II's government added a full-face image of Christ on the obverse of imperial gold coins. The change caused the Caliph Abd al-Malik to stop his earlier adoption of Byzantine coin types. He started a purely Islamic coinage with lettering only.[7]
A letter by the patriarch Germanus written before 726 to two Iconoclast
bishops says that "now whole towns and multitudes of people are in
considerable agitation over this matter" but there is little written
evidence of the debate.[8]
Protestant Reformation
Further information: Beeldenstorm
16th-century iconoclasm in the Protestant Reformation. Relief statues in St. Stevenskerk in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, were attacked and defaced in the Beeldenstorm.
Destruction of religious images in Zurich, 1524
prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven (sculpted) images
of God. As a result, individuals attacked statues and images, and
others were lost during unauthorised iconoclastic riots. However, in
most cases, civil authorities removed images in an orderly manner in the
newly reformed Protestant cities and territories of Europe.
Significant iconoclastic riots took place in Zurich (in 1523), Copenhagen (1530), Münster (1534), Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537), Scotland (1559), Rouen (1560) and Saintes and La Rochelle (1562).[9] The Seventeen Provinces
(now the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of Northern France) were
disrupted by widespread Protestant iconoclasm in the summer of 1566.
This is called the "Beeldenstorm" and began with the destruction of the statuary of the Monastery of Saint Lawrence in Steenvoorde after a "Hagenpreek", or field sermon, by Sebastiaan Matte.
Hundreds of other attacks included the sacking of the Monastery of Saint Anthony after a sermon by Jacob de Buysere. The Beeldenstorm marked the start of the revolution against the Spanish forces and the Catholic Church.
Remains of Reformation iconoclasm, Clocher Saint-Barthélémy, La Rochelle, France.
a vast number of his followers viewed themselves as being involved in a
spiritual community that in matters of faith should obey neither the
visible Church nor lay authorities. According to author R.W Scribner:[10]
"Zwingli's attack on images, at the first debate, triggered iconoclastic incidents in Zurich
and the villages under civic jurisdiction that the reformer was
unwilling to condone." And due to this action of protest against
authority, “Zwingli responded with a carefully reasoned treatise that
men could not live in society without laws and constraint.”
—Wallace,[10] pp. 95
Muslim iconoclasm
Further information: Aniconism in Islam
Within Muslim history, the act of removing idols from the Ka'ba in Mecca is considered by all believers to be of great symbolic and historical importance.In general, Muslim societies have avoided the depiction of living beings (animals and humans) within such sacred spaces as mosques and madrasahs. This opposition to figural representation is not based on the Qur'an, but rather on various traditions contained within the Hadith.
The prohibition of figuration has not always extended to the secular
sphere, and a robust tradition of figural representation exists within Muslim art.[11]
However, western authors have tended to perceive "a long, culturally
determined, and unchanging tradition of violent iconoclastic acts"
within Islamic society.[11]
Recent events
Further information: Destruction of early Islamic heritage sites in Saudi Arabia
Certain Muslim denominations continue to pursue iconoclastic agendas. There has been much controversy within Islam over the recent and apparently on-going destruction of historic sites by Saudi Arabian authorities, prompted by the fear they could become the subject of "idolatry".[12][13]During the Tuareg rebellion of 2012, the radical Islamist militia Ansar Dine destroyed various Sufi shrines from the 15th and 16th centuries in the city of Timbuktu, Mali.[14]
During the Bahraini urprising a large number of Shia mosques were destroyed by the Sunni government.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
has carried out iconoclastic attacks such as the destruction of Shia
mosques and shrines. Notable incidents include the Mosque of the Prophet
Yunus (Jonah)[15] and the Shrine to Seth in Mosul.[16]
Other examples of religious iconoclasm
- The Israelites entering the Promised Land
were instructed by God to 'destroy all [the] engraved stones, destroy
all [the] molded images, and demolish all [the] high places' of the Canaanite indigenous population.[17] - In Judaism, King Hezekiah purged Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and the Land of Israel of figures, including the Nehushtan, as recorded in the Second Book of Kings. His reforms were reversed in the reign of his son Manasseh.
- In 305-306, the Synod of Elvira
appeared to endorse iconoclasm. Canon 36 states, "Pictures are not to
be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and
adoration."[18][19][Note 2] Proscription ceased after the destruction of pagan temples. - During the process of Christianisation under Constantine, groups destroyed the images and sculptures expressive of the Roman Empire's polytheist state religion.
- Most of the moai of Easter Island were toppled during the 18th century in the iconoclasm of civil wars before any European encounter.
- After the Second Vatican Council in the late twentieth century, some Roman Catholic parish churches discarded much of their traditional imagery, art, and architecture.[20]
- According to an article in Buddhist-Christian Studies: "Over
the course of the last decade [1990s] a fairly large number of Buddhist
temples in South Korea have been destroyed or damaged by fire by
misguided Christian fundamentalists. More recently, Buddhist statues
have been identified as idols, and attacked and decapitated in the name
of Jesus. Arrests are hard to effect, as the arsonists and vandals work
by stealth of night."[21]
Political and revolutionary iconoclasm
The Sons of Liberty pulling down the statue of George III of the United Kingdom on Bowling Green (New York City), 1776.
Damnatio memoriae
Main article: damnatio memoriae
Revolutions and changes of regime, whether through uprising of the local population, foreign invasion, or a combination of both, are often
accompanied by the public destruction of statues and monuments
identified with the previous regime. This may also be known as damnatio memoriae,
the Ancient Roman practice of official obliteration of the memory of a
specific individual. Stricter definitions of "iconoclasm" exclude both
types of action, reserving the term for religious or more widely
cultural destruction. In many cases, such as Revolutionary Russia or
Ancient Egypt, this distinction can be hard to make.
Several Roman emperors and other political figures subject to decrees of damnatio memoriae, included Sejanus, Publius Septimius Geta, and Domitian.
Iconoclasm in the French Revolution
Throughout the radical phase of the French Revolution,iconoclasm was supported by members of the government as well as the
citizenry. Numerous monuments, religious works, and other historically
significant pieces were destroyed in an attempt to eradicate any memory
of the Old Regime. At the same time, the republican government felt
responsible to preserve these works for their historical, aesthetic, and
cultural value. One way the republican government succeeded in their
paradoxical mission of preserving and destroying symbols of the Old
Regime was through the development of museums.
During the Revolution, a statue of King Louis XV
in the Paris square which until then bore his name, was pulled down and
destroyed. This was a prelude to the guillotining of his successor Louis XVI in the same site, renamed "Place de la Révolution" (at present Place de la Concorde).
The statue of Napoleon on the column at Place Vendôme, Paris was also the target of iconoclasm several times: destroyed after the Bourbon Restoration, restored by Louis-Philippe, destroyed during the Paris Commune and restored by Adolphe Thiers.
Demolition of Hindu temples
During Muslim conquest
General view of Temple and Enclosure of Marttand or the Sun, near Bhawan, taken by John Burke in 1868.
The historian, Upendra Thakur records the persecution of Hindus and Buddhists:
Muhammad triumphantly marched into the country, conquering Debal,Sultan Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (1389–1413) ordered the breaking of all "golden and silver images". The Firishta
Sehwan, Nerun, Brahmanadabad, Alor and Multan one after the other in
quick succession, and in less than a year and a half, the far-flung
Hindu kingdom was crushed ... There was a fearful outbreak of religious
bigotry in several places and temples were wantonly desecrated. At
Debal, the Nairun and Aror temples were demolished and converted into
mosques.[23]
states, "After the emigration of the Bramins, Sikundur ordered all the
temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down. Having broken all the images in
Kashmeer, (Sikandar) acquired the title of ‘Destroyer of Idols’".[24]
Somnath, Prabhas Patan, Gujarat, from the Archaeological Survey of India, taken by D. H. Sykes in c. 1869.
Chinese "anti-foreignism"
Further information: Anti-Western sentiment in China
During the 1926 Northern Expedition in Guangxi, Kuomintang General Bai Chongxiled his troops in destroying Buddhist temples and smashing Buddhist
images, turning the temples into schools and Kuomintang party
headquarters.[28] It was reported that almost all of the viharas in Guangxi were destroyed. The monks were removed.[29]
Bai led a wave of anti-foreignism in Guangxi, attacking American,
European, and other foreigners and missionaries, and generally making
the province unsafe for foreigners. Westerners fled from the province
and some Chinese Christians were also attacked as imperialist agents.[30]
The three goals of the movement were anti-foreignism,
anti-imperialism and anti-religion. Bai led the anti-religious movement
against superstition. Huang Shaohong,
also a Kuomintang member of the New Guangxi clique, supported Bai's
campaign. The anti-religious campaign was agreed upon by all Guangxi
Kuomintang members.[31]
Other examples
Other examples of political destruction of images include:- Public references to the "heretical" Pharaoh Akhenaten were destroyed soon after his death in about 1334 BC; a very laborious process with stone-carved reliefs and inscriptions.
- During the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty pulled down and destroyed the gilded lead statue of George III of the United Kingdom on Bowling Green (New York City), melting it down to be recast as ammunition.
Similar acts have accompanied the independence of most ex-colonial
territories. Sometimes relatively intact monuments are moved to a
collected display in a less prominent place, as in India and also
post-Communist countries. - From the 16th through the 19th centuries, much of the polytheistic
religious deities and texts of pre-colonial Americas, Oceania and
Africa, were destroyed by Christian missionaries and their converts such
as during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. - During and after the Russian October Revolution of 1917, widespread destruction of religious and secular imagery took place, as well as destruction of imagery related to the Imperial family. The Revolution was accompanied by destruction of monuments of past tsars, as well as Imperial Eagles at various locations throughout Russia. "In front of a Moscow cathedral, crowds cheered as the enormous statue of Tsar Alexander III
was bound with ropes and gradually beaten to the ground. After a
considerable amount of time, the statue was decapitated and its
remaining parts were broken into rubble".[32] - During and after the Xinhai Revolution in China, as well as during the later Cultural Revolution, there was widespread destruction of religious and secular imagery in China, including Tibet
after it was invaded and occupied by the PRC after 1950. The Cultural
Revolution included widespread destruction of historic artworks in
public places and private collections, whether religious or secular.
Objects in state museums were mostly left intact. - During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in Budapest and during the revolutions of 1989, protesters often attacked and took down sculptures and images of Joseph Stalin, leader of the USSR.[33]
- The fall of Communism in 1989 was followed by destruction or removal of statues of Vladimir Lenin
and other Communist leaders in the former Soviet Union and in other
Soviet bloc countries. Particularly well-known was the destruction of "Iron Felix", the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky outside the KGB headquarters, and another one of his on a Warsaw square of his name (now Bank Square). - The Taliban destroyed two ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan in Bamyan, Afghanistan in March 2001.[34]
- The Battle of Baghdad symbolically ended with the Firdos Square statue destruction, a US military-staged event in April 2003 where a prominent statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down.
See also
Notes
- A
possible translation is also: "There shall be no pictures in the
church, lest what is worshipped and adored should be depicted on the
walls."
References
- "Afghan Taliban leader orders destruction of ancient statues". Rawa.org. Retrieved 2013-04-30.
Further reading
- Alloa, Emmanuel (2013). Visual Studies in Byzantium, in: Journal of Visual Culture 12.1 (2013) 3-29 (on the conceptual background of Byzantine iconoclasm)
- Barasch, Moshe (1992). Icon: Studies in the History of an Idea. University of New York Press. ISBN 0-8147-1172-3.
- Besançon, Alain (2009). The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-04414-9.
- Bevan, Robert (2006). The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-86189-319-2.
- Boldrick, Stacy, Leslie Brubaker, and Richard Clay, eds. Striking Images, Iconoclasms Past and Present (Ashgate, 2014) 236 pages; scholarly studies of the destruction of images from prehistory to the Taliban
- Freedberg, David (1977). A. Bryer and J. Herrin, eds. The Structure of Byzantine and European Iconoclasm (PDF). University of Birmingham, Centre for Byzantine Studies. pp. 165–177. ISBN 978-0-7044-0226-3.
- Freedberg, David (1985). Iconoclasts and their Motives (Second Horst Gerson Memorial Lecture, University of Groningen) (PDF). Maarssen: Gary Schwartz. ISBN 978-90-6179-056-3. Reprinted in Public (Toronto) (8). Fall 1993. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - Gamboni, Dario (1997). The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-86189-316-1.
- Gwynn,
David M. From Iconoclasm to Arianism: The Construction of Christian
Tradition in the Iconoclast Controversy [Greek, Roman, and Byzantine
Studies 47 (2007) 225–251. - Ivanovic, Filip (2010). Symbol and Icon: Dionysius the Areopagite and the Iconoclastic Crisis. Pickwick. ISBN 978-1-60899-335-2.
- Karahan, Anne (2014). “Byzantine Iconoclasm: Ideology and Quest for Power”. In: Eds. K. Kolrud and M. Prusac, Iconoclasm from Antiquity to Modernity, Ashgate Publishing Ltd: Farnham, Surrey, pp. 75–94. ISBN 978-1-4094-7033-5.
- Lambourne, Nicola (2001). War Damage in Western Europe: The Destruction of Historic Monuments During the Second World War. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-1285-8.
- Teodoro lo Studita, Antirrheticus Adversus Iconomachos. Confutazioni contro gli avversari delle sante icone, a cura di Antonio Calisi, Chàrisma Edizioni, Bari 2013, pp. 106. ISBN 978-88-9085-590-0
- Velikov, Yuliyan (2011). Image of the Invisible. Image Veneration and Iconoclasm in the Eighth Century. Veliko Turnovo University Press. ISBN 978–954–524–779–8 (in Bulgarian)
External links
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Look up iconoclasm or iconoclast in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Iconoclasm. |
- Iconclasm in England, Holy Cross College
- Design as Social Agent at the ICA by Kerry Skemp, April 5, 2009
shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve
them. . . ." (Exodus 20:4–5a, ESV.)
Peter George. "Evangelical Movements and Confessions". The Long
European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict, and the Search for
Conformity, 1350–1750. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2004. 95. Print
Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur.
This canon has often been urged against the veneration of images as practised in the Catholic Church. Binterim, De Rossi, and Hefele
interpret this prohibition as directed against the use of images in
overground churches only, lest the pagans should caricature sacred
scenes and ideas; Von Funk, Termel, and Henri Leclercq
opine that the council did not pronounce as to the liceity or
non-liceity of the use of images, but as an administrative measure
simply forbade them, lest new and weak converts from paganism should
incur thereby any danger of relapse into idolatry, or be scandalized by
certain superstitious excesses in no way approved by the ecclesiastical
authority.
|date= (help)
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